Cool, and now we'll be hearing the term "magic box" in a lot of sc2 casts now. Or, for simplicity sake, they'll probably just say "He boxed his banelings in that attack!", "The boxed mutas took care of those Thors!"
I wonder what the korean announcers will call it? "Boxuuuuuuuuuu!!"
Besides being better when advancing on tanks/collosii, I can't really think of a situation that this is all that useful... They still get funneled around units and terrain if the enemy runs.
Just tried this with 15 banelings and it takes a few tries to get right. I feel like i was pushing the maximum size of the box here, when i patrolled them but they were too scattered when i hit S they would clump back up when moved. You really have to have a good eye to see when the spread is maximum without them clumping up.
Oh and obviously tight chokes / ramps kill your formation.
this won't work with more then 16 imo, you will need multiple boxed baneling groups in big fights. I do not know how practical this is.
On August 26 2010 08:32 gerundium wrote: Just tried this with 15 banelings and it takes a few tries to get right. I feel like i was pushing the maximum size of the box here, when i patrolled them but they were too scattered when i hit S they would clump back up when moved. You really have to have a good eye to see when the spread is maximum without them clumping up.
Oh and obviously tight chokes / ramps kill your formation.
this won't work with more then 16 imo, you will need multiple boxed baneling groups in big fights. I do not know how practical this is.
I got as many as twenty to work after a few tries. Players will have to make multiple boxed groups to prevent larger groups from clustering. This is good, as it adds an extra dimension of skill, and if you're investing in 30+ banelings (750 gas!) I imagine players with skill will want to make the most of them.
I've been experimenting with this too actually. It really does show results. I've also tested it using about 13 zerglings in a perfect formation to use as cannon fodder against a siege tank army. If the zerglings are spread out well (and they will stay spread out due to magic box) it takes 13 siege tank shots to kill them all, which will give the rest of your army a lot of time to run towards the siege ball without getting pelted on the way there.
Here's a tip to getting your magic box to the perfect size.
After you order your units to stop, order them to move somewhere, lets say a range of 7 to the right. Click stop right away. If the group was to big to "fit" in the magic box, they should have gotten a bit closer together now. Repeat this, moving your units down. Repeat in a clockwise-manner until your units stop moving closer to one another. It is then you reached the near-best magic-box size.
This would be most powerful (but much more time consuming) if you manually spreading each unit in a box shape to cover the most surface area of the box as possible while still maintaining unit-spread.
On August 26 2010 07:55 kNyTTyM wrote: This was actually found quite a while ago but still interesting. Just tried it and while it spreads the banelings initially, attacking with a decent amount of banelings will still cause them to clump. Now what needs to be done is determine exactly how many banelings fit inside each magic box to prevent them from clumping when going on attack move.
They'll always clump if you a move...the point of magic box is to just move, like with mutas.
besides, there is no reason to a move banelings, they still do damage even if enemy kills them.
The banelings still clump if you just move command. Mutalisks clump when they a-move because they acquire targets then stop right in their attack range not because a-move discounts magic box. Large baneling groups still clump well before their attack range and get railed on by tanks. Why? Because of magic box area.
Magic box refers to this specific amount of space a set of units can occupy. When all units are within this box and are issued a command, they stay in formation. However, grouping even a single unit outside of this space will cause clumping. So after hitting patrol and letting them spread, you must know exactly how many of them to select. Selecting one outside the box leads to immediate clumping. Selecting only the banes inside a box will allow them to remain spread out. To prevent bunching you must know exactly how large this magic box is and group units accordingly. That's what the second part of my post refers to.
So currently the trick is about as effective as splitting banes into 3 groups before 1a moving. If their is a clever way of knowing determining exactly how many banes to group the this will becomes amazing.
"Magic box" has been the term since BW days...this is not a new discovery/term. (Not trying to negate this thread or further insights into how the magic box works in SC2 at all. I appreciate the efforts ;P)
magic box in bw is an entirely different phenomenon
that refers to placing units in certain formations and moving them in a special way to glitch out the engine and make it do strange things. i.e telling 4 ht to cast a storm and having them blanket storm rather than all on one spot. or having a group of air units clustered, while having one far off in the distance so they stack and don't spread. that is magic box
in sc2 what happens is people move units. thats literally all it is. magic boxing in sc2 is the equivalent of not a-moving. theres no special trick to making mutas not stack, you just give them a move command and tell them to attack when they're in the desired position. theres nothing magic about it, nothing that makes the engine break itself. its moving your goddamn units
Now I get why some people like IdrA clicks attack move their army waaaay past the opponents army.
They actually cluster less the further away you click, which makes it so much easier to get good surrounds and concaves. I just realized that when I was testing this patrol thing out.
On August 26 2010 09:34 Tropics wrote: magic box in bw is an entirely different phenomenon
that refers to placing units in certain formations and moving them in a special way to glitch out the engine and make it do strange things. i.e telling 4 ht to cast a storm and having them blanket storm rather than all on one spot. or having a group of air units clustered, while having one far off in the distance so they stack and don't spread. that is magic box
There is smartcasting of spells in SC2. There is not in BW. I don't see how that's a good comparison. The Magic Box can be used to blanket spells effectively, but that is not its only use.
in sc2 what happens is people move units. thats literally all it is. magic boxing in sc2 is the equivalent of not a-moving. theres no special trick to making mutas not stack, you just give them a move command and tell them to attack when they're in the desired position. theres nothing magic about it, nothing that makes the engine break itself. its moving your goddamn units
The engine does not break. Please search for "magic box" here on teamliquid. There are quite a few in-depth analyses on it. It is something that is in the engine and an advanced technique to use.
Why so serious? If you don't like the term, then don't use it..
i dont think you understand what a comparison is but even if you do you certainly didnt understand my post.
read my last post again if you want to know what a magic box actually is.
theres no magic box in sc2, its just moving units. you don't have to do anything specific, you literally give the units a move command and they act that way. i just really loathe people giving something a term that means something entirely different, the only reason people call it that is to try and sound like they know what they're talking about and it frustrates me, its complete misuse of terminology by people who don't understand it.
On August 26 2010 10:42 Tropics wrote: i dont think you understand what a comparison is but even if you do you certainly didnt understand my post.
read my last post again if you want to know what a magic box actually is.
theres no magic box in sc2, its just moving units. you don't have to do anything specific, you literally give the units a move command and they act that way. i just really loathe people giving something a term that means something entirely different, the only reason people call it that is to try and sound like they know what they're talking about and it frustrates me, its complete misuse of terminology by people who don't understand it.
But your last post doesn't accurately explain the whole Magic Box theory - MB refers to moving units and then stopping/holding them, not attacking with them. If you attack with a bunch of mutas, a-move or FF, they'll clump up and get curbed by whatever they're attacking - if you stop/hold command them, they'll retain their formation and do a bit of their own curbing.
I'm pretty sure that it's possible to shift-H or shift-S at the end of other queued commands - I wonder if you could do a "manual patrol" with multiple moves to space them out and then add an S/H stop them in formation?
On August 26 2010 10:42 Tropics wrote: i dont think you understand what a comparison is but even if you do you certainly didnt understand my post.
read my last post again if you want to know what a magic box actually is.
theres no magic box in sc2, its just moving units. you don't have to do anything specific, you literally give the units a move command and they act that way. i just really loathe people giving something a term that means something entirely different, the only reason people call it that is to try and sound like they know what they're talking about and it frustrates me, its complete misuse of terminology by people who don't understand it.
But your last post doesn't accurately explain the whole Magic Box theory - MB refers to moving units and then stopping/holding them, not attacking with them. If you attack with a bunch of mutas, a-move or FF, they'll clump up and get curbed by whatever they're attacking - if you stop/hold command them, they'll retain their formation and do a bit of their own curbing.
It's not really the magic box, in broodwar it would force the AI to do something it isn't supposed to.
In your mutalisk example they are just moving in a flock then stopping then attacking instead of moving then attacking as soon as they are in range. I think this is more like basic unit control.
But either way you say it doesn't matter as long as you get your point across, which comes up as a problem when people have different definitions for certain terms.
I think SC2 needs it's own thread with terms and abbreviations like BW does.
Edit: I think these types of things would be more akin to vulture micro in BW